Not Just another Architecture Blog

Rem Koolhaas – CCTV HQ Beijing

Definitely a celebrity architect, at the opening of the Prada stores of his design in New York and Los Angeles, he was a recognizable figure

Former journalist and screenwriter who studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London

“Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design” at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design

In 1975 Koolhaas along with some other architects founded the OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), dedicated to finding “new synergies” between architecture and contemporary culture

In 2005, he co-founded ‘Volume Magazine’ together with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman.

Awards:

Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate for the year 2000

TIME Magazine Best Architecture for 2004 (Seattle Central Library)

RIBA Gold Medal (2004).

In 2005 Rem Koolhaas received the Mies van der Rohe Award for the Netherlands Embassy, Berlin

A Visionary Architect:

From the Pritzker Prize Jurors:

Rem Koolhaas is that rare combination of visionary and implementer —philosopher and pragmatist — theorist and prophet — an architect whose ideas about buildings and urban planning made him one of the most discussed contemporary architects in the world even before any of his design projects came to fruition.

He is not a formalist, yet he creates form. He is not a functionalist, yet programs are the generators of his solutions; he is not a theoretician, yet ideas dominate his work.

Design Philosophy

Boldly produces buildings that differ visually to their surroundings

Celebrates the “chance-like” nature of city

Interrogated the “Program“ to oppose the notion “ an act to edit function and human activities “ as the pretext of architectural design

His work emphatically embraces the contradictions of two disciplines- architecture and urban design